


In Memorium

by faeblesmith



Series: Captain America: Redux [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Discussion of Parent death, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, POV Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, The Hobbit References, doesn't he always smh, sad Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-25 23:21:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30096717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faeblesmith/pseuds/faeblesmith
Summary: Nearly one year after Steve Rogers's mother dies, The Hobbit is released. About a day before the anniversary of her death, Steve asks Bucky to read some of it to him.A quick little one-shot discussing the grief of losing a loved one and how it can affect every aspect of you. Also Bucky is reading The Hobbit. Ipromiseit has comfort, but given that The Hobbit came out Sept. 21, 1937 and the one year anniversary of Sarah Rogers's death was Oct. 16, 1937, it made sense to me to discuss that.Edit: I promise it's not sad lmao
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: Captain America: Redux [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2204685
Comments: 5
Kudos: 7





	In Memorium

**Author's Note:**

> this fic was inspired by [faunary's](https://faunary.tumblr.com) [wonderful art of steve and bucky](https://faunary.tumblr.com/post/645589616096837632/i-read-the-hobbit-in-1937-when-it-first-came) that made me go "OWO WHAT'S THIS" but in my heart
> 
> all of my marvel fic (all two of them currently, but i'm 40k deep into the first part of a series rn) are set in the same universe, so something to note is that steve rogers is deaf in one ear because i said so.

**1937-**  
In the months (and years) after Sarah Rogers’s death, Bucky spends the majority of his down time at Steve’s apartment. It is, of course, the same little place he grew up (with the rent paid in full by his mother’s window checks now being given to him), and he and Bucky make it a home again with time.   
The beginning was the hardest. Steve was irritable and quick to anger, snapping at Bucky over the smallest offenses. When he could get out of bed, that is. But with time and more patience than Bucky knew he had, they got through it. The good days came more and more frequently, eventually outweighing the bad.   
A year passes before Steve fully slips again. It was a decent year, all things considered; Bucky read and Steve painted. Steve overworked and Bucky (to no one’s surprise) started college. Steve cried and Bucky held. Steve lost another job on account of being sick too often and Bucky was in talks for an internship with a paper. It was a decent year, all things considered.   
Steve’s slip starts slowly. His first drop was a sudden plummet, tripping over a precipice no one had known was there. He’d taken one look at the doctor come to tell him of his mother’s passing and collapsed. Bucky will never forget the way he’d screamed. This drop was almost imperceptible if you didn’t see Steve every day. But Bucky does. It starts with Steve slowing down: he’s slower to wake up, slower to pull himself out of bed, slower to hide the ache in his bones. Then on the rare occasions that Steve has time off, he stops getting out of bed altogether. By the time October dares show its face again, Bucky has to pull Steve from bed every day, has to coax him into his clothes and out the door, has to remind him to eat and to take his medications. It’s not that Bucky’s forgotten how difficult it was the first time, it’s just that some irrational part of himself hoped Steve would never hurt like this again.   
On October fifteenth (twenty-seven hours before The Anniversary) Steve slumps into the apartment, seeming unsurprised to find Bucky already sprawled on the couch with a book in hand. Bucky closes the book around his finger and watches Steve pull off his shoes and jacket. Steve glances up at him, then down at the book.   
“Whatcha reading?” he asks. It’s an innocent question, and Bucky is glad Steve is trying, but he sounds so tired, like he could sleep for a hundred years and still not have slept enough. Bucky holds out a hand and stretches out his fingers to Steve. Steve stares for a moment longer, seeming to process the request, before limping over and sitting gingerly next to Bucky’s hips.   
“It’s a new one, lady at the shop said it came out last month or something like that.” Steve hums, nodding a little. “Did something happen on your way home, Steve?” Bucky asks, sitting up a little, but Steve immediately shakes his head, slumping back a little.   
“Just my hip again. I’m falling apart, is all. What’s your book about?” Steve clearly doesn’t want to talk about himself or his day. He never does recently, but Bucky doesn’t know how to cross that line. Before Sarah died, Steve was a perfect open book, and while Bucky can still read most things, others are smudged and vague; he can tell Steve is hurting— physically, emotionally, generally —but he doesn’t know how to fix it. So he carefully takes Steve’s arm and pulls him onto his chest. He goes down easily enough, letting his good ear rest against Bucky’s chest. Bucky asked, once, why Steve always puts his good ear against his chest, but Steve just blushed and stammered out something about trust. Bucky thinks it’s because he can hear his heartbeat this way.   
“There’s this guy, Bilbo, who gets kind of recruited by this old wizard called Gandalf to go…” Bucky pauses in his explanation, considering his next words. “To go… Well, rob a dragon, basically,” he finishes, and Steve snorts then shivers. He’s always so cold. Bucky pulls the old quilt from the back of the couch and throws it across Steve then runs his fingers across a seam of it, remembering when Sarah had given Steve the blanket. Steve presses in closer, heaving out a sigh too big for his body. “It’s a good book, it’s funny. It’s very Christian, though.” Bucky feels Steve make a face before humming a little.   
“That’s unfortunate,” he says. There’s a lull where Bucky is pretty sure Steve is asleep until he whispers: “Read to me?” And who is Bucky to refuse such a soft request from Steve, whose voice is liquid with almost sleep? He clears his throat and opens his book, resting his elbow on Steve’s shoulder and tucking his other hand against the base of Steve’s neck. Bucky begins to read,  
“ _Gandalf whistled again; but Nori and Ori were there almost before he had stopped, for, if you remember…_ ”  
Bucky doesn’t realize he’s fallen asleep until he wakes up. Steve is shaking against his chest, a pool of warm tears forming under his cheek. Bucky wraps his arms around Steve, cradling him. Steve’s breath quivers and his fingers curl into the edge of the quilt.   
“I miss my mom.”   
“Oh, Steve…” Bucky runs his hand up Steve’s back, scratching through his hair. “I miss her, too.” Steve curls in on himself, wrapping the blanket tighter around his shoulders. Steve cries and Bucky holds.   
“She should’ve been there, should’ve watched me graduate. And… and she wasn’t a great cook, but I miss her challah, and I miss… I miss how cold her fingers were when she fixed me up after I got into a fight, and I- Bucky, I miss her.” Bucky doesn’t know what to say. He remembers all of it, he remembers when he first met Sarah Rogers and the way she’d lean into his mother’s shoulder when they laughed together.   
“Do you remember when she was talking about your dad and Becky said- well, I don’t remember what she said, but your mom threw a pillow at her.” Steve is shaking again, but he’s laughing now. He nods, his tears smearing against his cheek.   
“She used to call your mom Pooh Bear,” he whispers.   
“Dad hated that.”  
“He was just jealous he didn’t think of it first.”  
“Probably.” And they’re both laughing now, Steve hiding his face in Bucky’s chest, and Bucky continuing to play with the hair at the base of Steve’s neck. They calm down slowly, and Bucky risks a glance at the clock. “We never ate dinner.”   
“We still can.” Steve is relaxing again, though Bucky isn’t sure he’s stopped crying. “Is it ever going to stop hurting?”   
“She’s your mom, Steve. Just because it hurts doesn’t mean you’ll never recover.”   
“Thank you, Bucky.”  
“Anytime, darling.”

**Author's Note:**

> if u liked this (:pleading:) you can follow my marvel blog [here](https://steverogers-against-disney.tumblr.com)  
> or, if you promise not to mention marvel to me, on my main blog [here](https://faeblesmith.tumblr.com)
> 
> comments appreciated, but i'm not the boss of you uwu


End file.
